YOGA🔗

‘The coming together, the union of body, mind and spirit will allow us to experience nothing but bliss.’

Nithyananda

To most, especially in the western societies, when we think of yoga, we immediately associate it with a series of yoga asana (physical postures), flawlessly executed to promote strength, flexibility and balance in the physical body. Yoga is more or less promoted today as a physical form of exercise to reach optimum fitness.

It is common for newcomers at yoga studios to immediately ask if the practice of yoga is an effective way to lose weight and strengthen the body. Of course, these are wonderful aspirations and we can gain great physical benefits from practicing yoga asana; however, the concept of yoga needs to be examined at a deeper level. The meaning of yoga is not merely limited to exercise or to movement of the body.

In Sanskrit, the word Yoga literally means ‘to unite’, or ‘to become one with’. In very broad terms, yoga is a means to unite with our higher Self. It means to come together, or unite, the body, mind and spirit. Therefore, yoga implies a movement from the outer experience to the inner experience. In very traditional terms, yoga means union.

The only side effect of walking the path of yoga and achieving the union of yoga is ananda or bliss. The coming together, the union of body, mind and spirit will allow us to experience nothing but bliss.

What is bliss?

Normally we associate the word ‘bliss’ with the happiness that we feel in our day to day lives. And, if we look closely, we will find that this ordinary happiness usually results from an event outside of ourselves.

In the Life Bliss Meditation Program, participants are asked by Acharya (teachers) to close their eyes for a moment and recall and relive their happiest moment, the most blissful moment of their entire life. After participants perform this activity, they are asked to share their blissful memory with the group. What's found is that in nearly all cases each student will describe an experience of bliss which has its source in something external such as a happy occasion or when they have benefited materially or when they heard good news about a relationship, person or event in the outside world.

This feeling of happiness is usually temporary and is purely dependant on people and circumstances outside, in the external world. Unfortunately, even these most pleasurable experiences ultimately lead to unhappiness. In fact, all happiness eventually leads to sadness because all of our happy moments are only temporary. That is because all of the circumstances and the people around us are constantly changing. When others around us change, when their behavior fluctuates, our happiness is affected. When our own inner peace is absent, then we try to snatch peace for ourselves from the external world.

When I first came to the U.S.A, my devotees took me to entertainment parks like Disneyland and Universal Studios thinking that I would feel delighted and happy. On the contrary, all I felt was a deep sadness and pity for the people of the USA. The fact that so much external entertainment was required to experience bliss only proved that the country was joyless.

Trying to snatch joy and bliss from the external world is nothing but trying to make a thread out of stone. Impossible! In India, they make thread from the banana tree and it is used to make flower garlands. If we try to make a thread from a stone we will not succeed. Similarly, if we attempt to find enjoyment in the outer world, we will not succeed.

All of our external activities are nothing but techniques to escape from our own selves. When we are not at ease with ourselves, we engage in various external activities. But the truth is, unless an individual is totally comfortable or at ease and relaxed within him or herself, it is impossible to find lasting joy in the external world. Joy is within, not outside. Our very nature is bliss. However, we constantly disturb our natural state of inner bliss due to the infinite longing we create in our mind. When a mirror is dusty, how can the reflection be clear? Similarly, when our mind is cluttered, we cannot extract joy from the external world.

The bliss I am talking about is different. It is not a temporary feeling. Bliss is our core and permanent state. It is purely a state inside our Self and it can in no way ever be affected by external world influences.

The Sanskrit, the word ananda, means ‘that which cannot be reduced’. Therefore, the bliss I am talking about is an experience that cannot be reduced by outer influences. The bliss we are working to uncover and experience is solid and stable. It is Nithyananda – Eternal Bliss.

OUR NATURE IS BLISS.

By our very nature, we are bliss.

What is the authority on which this statement is made?

First of all, we are all born into this world at an elevated level of consciousness and pure awareness. Every baby that is received into the world is perfect proof of our natural and inherent state of bliss. In fact, we are born in the state of yoga (union of body, mind and spirit).

Secondly, it must be understood that all of the great Masters, not just limited to Hindu Mystics, but including Masters of all the religions, groups and sectors, all agree on one particular concept: ‘That by nature we are intelligence and by nature we are bliss’. Understand, that no spiritual Master will agree with any other Master on any other one concept. It is just the opposite in the fields of medicine and mathematics. In these fields, scientists have easily agreed on many concepts and theories.

But, when it comes to spirituality, things are different. There is a beautiful statement: ‘If two Rishi (sages) agree on one concept, be aware that one of the Rishi is a fake.’ All spiritual Masters have their individual theories, their own expressions and their own experiences. That is why it is virtually impossible for them to agree on any one single concept, apart from agreeing on the one fact, that by nature we are bliss. It also helps that the presence of bliss existing within our make-up has been directly experienced.

In order to understand the bliss experienced as the union of mind, body and spirit according to our holistic concept of yoga, let us examine in detail the constitution of the body. According to the Upanishad, the oldest treaties on spirituality, we have 5 sheaths called Kosha in Sanskrit.

These 5 sheaths surround and enclose our atman or soul. These follow in the order of their subtlety:

Annamaya: The Physical Body.

This body constitutes the gross human body which is visible to the eye. The body is made of flesh and bones. Also, the body is composed of the 5 primordial elements: fire, water, earth, air and space and is directly under the control and influence of the Pranic body.

Pranamaya: The Pranic Body.

Prana is our life force or energy. This force includes the act of inhaling and exhaling and also includes all of the other prana or life forces moving within us and energizing our body. The Pranic body is also directly linked to the 7 major energy centers (chakra) in our system.

The next 3 bodies that are listed below are in the order of becoming progressively subtler. They relate predominantly to a person's mental faculty.

Manonmaya: The Mental Body.

Mana means mind and therefore is the layer in which our inner chattering (constant mental activity) occurs. This is the body in which are our senses (sight, sound, taste) are interpreted, and our thoughts are processed. This kosha is central to human existence. It is more gross than the bodies it precedes (wisdom and bliss bodies) although it is subtler to the physical and pranic bodies.

Vigynanamaya: Wisdom.

This is the level at which you experience the state of deep

sleep and also the feeling of freshness and revitalization when you wake up from a deep and dreamless sleep. Vigyana means knowing or wisdom. The faculty of intelligence and reasoning are also associated with this body.

The final and innermost kosha which is also in the closest proximity to Being is anandamya kosha.

Ananda means bliss. It is rare that people experience this Anandamaya Kosha. When our mind is totally at peace and when our mind is totally in silence, when there is nothing but pure space, this is the experience of Anandamaya Kosha. This is the true experience of inner bliss. Bliss exists within us. Our very nature is bliss. It is always there. However, it is more or less a part of ourselves which has become remote, completely forgotten.

It is at the level of the anandamaya kosha that true yoga happens, where the union of mind, body and spirit takes place. We are one with the cosmic energy at this layer.

Our mind body spirit system can also be looked at a seven layered entity. These seven layers have similarities to the five sheaths, the kosha, we just now looked at, but somewhat different in their conceptual framework.

The first layer is the physical body. The second is the pranic body. There are seven such energy layers of the body. These energy layers can be represented as concentric circles with the physical layer as the outermost circle and the seventh layer, the nirvanic body as the innermost.

We go into complete detail into these seven layers of bodies during the Nithyananda Spurana Program (NSP), our second level meditation program.

Now, in a physical layer, you, God and I can be represented as three different points in the outermost concentric circle. In the physical level, the distance is too much. If you come down a little bit to the pranic level, the distance is reduced. If you come down deeper to the mental level, the distance between you and me is still reduced and so is the distance between you, God and I. When you go deeper and deeper, these three entities finally merge into one. Please be very clear that at the deep end of all these layers, God, you and I are one. There is no distance.

Once you become aware and realize that you are a part of collective consciousness, that you don’t have an individual identity, you realize that you do not have a separate ego.

You think you own your individual identity. In Existence, there is no such thing as a separate individual identity. Once you know this truth, you go beyond pain, sufferings, depressions and diseases.

Understand this: as long as you are individually conscious, you shall still be continuously suffering. Why do you think you are continuously resisting nature? Whatever nature offers, you resist.

There is a beautiful saying:

When it is cool, you resist. You think you are different from Existence. I have seen sanyasi, monks, living in Himalayas living almost nude in the cold, in the snow. I have myself lived but the body was never disturbed, I never had a problem. I never thought that I was different from the atmosphere, never had the feeling of separation from the nature. It is only when you start thinking that you are different from the atmosphere, from the air that is around you, you start resisting it.

The other day I read an interesting interview of this man who survived his jump into the Niagara falls. If you have been to the Niagara Falls, you can imagine the depth of the fact that someone survived jumping down the Niagara Falls. I cannot imagine someone surviving that Niagara Falls. He says beautifully, 'When I jumped, I became a part of that Niagara Falls. I felt like I was a part of it. I never felt that I was a different part of that falls.'

When you are in tune with Collective Consciousness, when

you become a part of the Collective Consciousness, nature is with you, nature is your friend and nature will protect you. Nature will not harm you. When you think that you are different from the nature; as long as you think that you are an individual consciousness, nature will protest you. As long as you are in tune with Collective Consciousness, nature protects you.

A very simple thing, you can practice now, if you are feeling cold, just relax, identify the area where you are feeling cold, witness that area. In that area, don't resist the atmosphere, don't resist the air, don't resist the temperature, don't resist the nature and don't resist Existence. Just say to yourself, 'I am not going to resist the nature, I am not going to resist the temperature, I am not going to resist Existence, let me relax.' Be conscious and decide; with this you shall see the body relaxing and the idea of cold disappearing from that part and you become completely comfortable. When you think you are something different from nature, you are disturbed by nature.

The Whole, the universe, is a hologram of which you are a part. Just as in a hologram, every single part reflects the totality of that hologram even if it is split, you reflect the totality of the whole that is the universe.

Another example, when a living person falls in a well and dies, the dead body floats. The dead body is heavier than water. Yet, it floats. But a living body, which is lighter, does not float. It drowns. Why do you think this is so? As long as you are living, you are not able to relate with water. Your ego prevents that; your mind prevents that. In the dead body there is no mind and no ego.

Wherever you want to achieve success, in a social or an economical way, only when you feel in tune with the whole group, fall in tune with the collective consciousness; then you will be able to achieve what you want to achieve. As long as you feel you are an individual, you want to have an idea that you are somebody, an identity, be very clear that you will be resisted and you will be resisting. Whether it is home or office or workplace or office or industry, this will happen.

If you disappear into the Collective Consciousness, you will be again and again protected and taken care. You will attain complete success, not only socially and economically, but you will experience it. It will be a feeling of fulfillment.

As long as you resist the current, whether it is your workplace or your house or your company or any place for that matter, as long as you do not disappear into the Collective Consciousness, you will be continuously creating hell for yourself and for others.

Even if in the physical layer, if you think you are something separate, be very clear, you will be inviting diseases. One more thing, in the mental layer, if you think you are separate, an individual, again and again, you will be sowing the seeds of violence. The seeds of violence will be created when you feel you are an individual. With collective consciousness, you unify but with individual consciousness, you dissect, you cut things in pieces. Logic always breaks. Intuition always unites. At the soul level, if you think you are an individual, there is no possibility of any spiritual growth.

First thing, even at the physical level, you are not an individual. Your body and the body of the sun are straightaway connected. Any small change in the body of the sun can make changes in your body. Any small change in your body can change the body of the moon. Even if you are not able to logically relate, it is true.

In the mental layer, also, you are not alone. Any thought which is put in anyone else's head comes and touches you and any thought created in someone else's mind goes and touches someone else. Any thought sowed by someone can touch you and affect you.

It is like ripples created in the water on a lake. If you are creating a strong wave, you will be creating an impression with your thought. You will be leading and inspiring others with your thought. If your thoughts are not solid enough, other waves will impress you.

Either you live like a leader or you will be a follower. There is no in between. You always think, I will not I be a leader, I cannot do that much. I will not be a follower either; I shall maintain my own stand. This is simply impractical. There is no such thing as my own stand. Either you lead or you follow.

In the mental level also, again and again, if you think you are an individual, you will be resisted. The moment you understand that you are a part of the collective consciousness, you will not be resisted but will be actually welcomed and accepted.

In the ultimate way, at the spiritual level, the moment you understand that you are deeply connected, totally connected, intensely connected to the whole universe, not only do you start experiencing the bliss, but you really start living, opening many dimensions of your being.

See, right with this one body, you can think so much, enjoy so much. If you disappear into this Collective Consciousness, you will experience so many dimensions, so many possibilities, you cannot imagine.

See, now that you have one body, you can enjoy so much. Imagine what you can do if you have two bodies. Just imagine what you can do when you have so many bodies. Imagine one body is an air conditioner and the other one is a heater. Imagine three different bodies in different countries enjoying different cultures. Similarly if the multitudes of bodies increase, so would be the joy, the bliss. The same thing you will experience when you are a part of Collective Consciousness.

During the Indian festival day of Holi, raas purnima, Radha and the gopi experienced the collective Consciousness; that is when Krishna gave Collective Consciousness to groups of gopi and Radha. We have a very wrong idea about this raas leela. We think that this raas leela is something where Krishna had a relationship with so many women. This is a wrong concept. Krishna was just 10 years old then! We have not read the original scriptures and have come up with our own conclusions. We pick up and support what we want. We just want some support from some scripture and some master so that we can do something behind his back. So we just start blaming Krishna. What happened actually was that He gave Collective Consciousness experiences to whole group of gopika and Radha. The Collective Consciousness is what I call God.

During the entire NSP, the Nithyananda Spurana Program, you will realize that you are a part of the Collective Consciousness. Not only that you are a part but you are the Collective Consciousness. You are not an individual consciousness as you think. Layer by layer when we go deeper and deeper, you will realize that you are just one with everything. So, automatically the diseases disappear. You start feeling the well being in the mental layer, the pranic layer, the etheric layer, the physical layer and all the other layers.

You are like an onion. If you peel the onion layer by layer, what is there inside, just emptiness! The onion thinks it has got something solid but when it is opened layer by layer, it is empty. Similarly, you think that you are individual consciousness, but if you peel the individual layers, you will experience you are nothing but the Cosmic Consciousness, the Collective Consciousness.

In the NSP, that is what we do, opening of your minds. You are asked to write for yourself, about your pains, desires, guilt and pleasures. You are not going to show these to anyone else. People ask me why I am asking them to write all this. You are not going to show me or anybody else. People ask me that when I know, why I should write it down. I tell people by writing it down you are opening your mind in my presence. You are opening your mind and hence I can heal your mind.

First of all you should understand that I do not heal. My presence heals. When the sun rises, lotus blooms by itself. The sun need not go and open the petals of the lotus. Similarly, in the presence of the Master, healing happens. Healing is not done, it happens. I can heal your body as it

is in my presence.

In the same way, if you open your mind, it can be healed. If you open it, the sun can heal it. The energy heals all the wounds. NSP is opening up your energy layers one by one and your pains, pleasures, guilt and desires are opened up. When they open up, you experience God; not only do you search for God but experience God, since pure mind is God itself and not something separate from it.

BLISS IS CHOICELESS. When we are perfectly choiceless and when we accept the current flow, we end up in bliss. For some people, there is the concern that they will feel inadequate if they do not feel that they are continuously making choices in life. They ask themselves, 'how can I end up in bliss when I cannot make a choice in my life?' The important thing to realize here is that being choiceless is only the acceptance of reality as it is. Choicelessness is not a form of suppression, but rather a form of acceptance.

When we truly understand the energy that moves the earth around the sun, the energy which makes life evolve and sustains nature in perfect equilibrium, then we realize that it is the same energy that is taking care of every individual and thing in the universe. The universe is so abundant and so generous that it wants to see each and every individual succeed. Our individual choices or interventions are not required to make things happen. When we understand this, we end up in a state of choicelessness or bliss and we start enjoying the divine play.

If we closely analyze ourselves, we will realize that we have been postponing the bliss all of our lives. When we were in India, we thought that if we got a US visa we would be happy. Once we got the visa, we started worrying about getting a good job. Once we got the good job we started thinking about a house in the U.S. After that we start thinking about a green card and then citizenship and the process continued. By the time we had a family, we had mortgaged our lives.

People come and ask me all of the time which is more important, their spiritual life or their material life? This is the million dollar question, which every so-called spiritual seeker has had at one time or another.

Today, existing in the world there are people in various professions, professional doctors, professional lawyers and there is another group of professionals, those who regard themselves as professional seekers. The job of the professional seeker consists of reading some books and continuously window shopping from Master to Master, from group to group and proclaiming that they are great spiritual seekers. There are thousands of these spiritual seekers out there. They always pose that one question though, asking whether they should put more energy into their spiritual life or their material life.

Be very clear, the moment we choose to pursue our spiritual life and turn our back on the material life or vice versa, we have begun to suffer. If we choose the material life, we feel we are missing the spiritual life. We start visualizing what we are missing. If we choose the spiritual life, we will start missing the material life. We always have that dilemma about which one to choose.

I assure you, there is no need to choose. Material life is the horizontal line and spiritual life is the vertical line. If we look deeply into our Being, if we deeply meditate, we will understand that we do not have to choose either the horizontal line or the vertical line. We have the ability to explode in both directions at the same time and space. This is what I call ‘Quantum Spirituality’.

To most people, material life represents all that they have in life, physical, emotional, economic and intellectual, which seemingly brings them unhappiness. Contrarily spiritual life is the greener grass that beckons, that they do not have, and which seems to have all that is missing from their current life. By giving up one for the other they seek happiness, peace of mind and bliss.

Being in the present is the key to awareness; awareness is the door that opens to bliss. To be in the present one needs to reach the state of ‘no mind’, a state where there are no thoughts. Once we reach this point the seeming contradiction of being at the same time in the vertical axis of spirituality while straddling the horizontal axis of materialism disappears.

When you are in this state of mind, of the present, of the here and now, you are in a no thought zone. This is what is called the ‘Zero TPS state’; TPS is thoughts per second. This is the state of Samadhi, the Ananda Gandha, Satori, Nithyananda state, Enlightenment, Salvation etc. You will have complete awareness and total consciousness but you will not have any thoughts.

Let us look at this diagram here:

The shaft in the center represents 'Time'. The horizontal axis has Future on the right constantly moving to the Past on the left. The vertical axis represents thoughts per second, TPS going higher as one goes higher.

At any given time, greater one's TPS or thoughts per second, more far-flung one is from consciousness of the present moment. You are simply worrying about the future, allowing it to slip into the past, without ever getting a glimpse of the present.

When your TPS comes down, you enter more and more into the present and when this happens, you have a clearer vision of the past and the future. Familiar incidents from even past births and intuitions of the future start to surface in you.

When this happens to you without your consciously attempting it, be very clear, that for those few moments, your TPS has dropped and you are more in the present. When your TPS is zero, you can clearly see the entire past and future. When people experience déjà vu feelings they drop accidentally into a zero TPS state.

Mind enslaves you to make you believe that you can only travel in one way, horizontally or vertically, spiritually or materially. That is why you do not grow in many spiritual sadhanas which force you to choose between the two, material and spiritual.

Instead of two axes you now have multiple axes, infinite axes that offer infinite possibilities in the past, present and future, as well as across all points in space. Being in the ‘here and now’ helps transcend barriers of time and space

so that one can be every where at all times.

This phenomenon of singularity, that Hindu scriptures call Brahman, Buddhists call ‘akasic record’ and generally referred to as Universal Consciousness, refers to this state of penetration of the time shaft at which point one is simultaneously in a state of past, present and future.

This is also the state of enlightenment, as the ego or mind breaks down at this point. It is an explosion within one’s mind that is multi dimensional in time and space frame in the total absence of thoughts.

To reach this state all one has to do is to stay in the present and suspend wasteful thoughts of past and future. As for the present just focus on what you are doing at that time.

Buddhism refers to this as the mindful state. Techniques such as vipassana seek to introduce us to this state of mindfulness. Most of us when we eat do everything else but focus on the food. We talk, watch TV, or read books paying scant attention to the food we consume. The food energy in turn pays scant attention to us. It turns into garbage and sits on our waist and hips instead of being the energy it could have been.

Stay in the present with whatever you do; when you take the next step; when you brush your teeth; when you smile at some one; just focus on what you are doing at that point in time. If other thoughts fleet by witness them as an observer without getting involved. These thoughts will die down by themselves. As thoughts slow down, gradually to disappear, you near the time shaft interface. When all

thoughts are suspended you are in the time shaft, with the entire time frame of past to future spreading in front of you.

At this point there is no past; therefore no baggage of the past can be accumulated; you can not therefore accumulate karmic baggage in this state.

At this point the future is known; therefore even as you focus only on the present you are aware of the future and what you decide to do in the present is with complete precognition of what the future entails.

Real spirituality begins when we start living in the moment and stop choosing between the spiritual life and material life. When we choose, we exclude the other. Real spirituality is all inclusive. When we restrict our life only to the so-called spiritual life, we reduce this all encompassing, all inclusive truth to a concept which we have about spiritual life. When we start living in the moment we naturally explode. We start expressing ourselves in our material life as well as our spiritual life.

All that matters is whether we live our life with awareness or without awareness. When we meditate, automatically our life is flooded with this awareness. We simply flood awareness into our Being and automatically we enter a new dimension of our Being. We begin to enjoy life truly, the material life and the spiritual life.

We look upon a spiritual person as being something different from the outer world; however, a spiritual person is made up of the same material as we. He or she eats the same kind of food we eat, sleeps like us and undertakes the same daily chores as we do. They are identical to us in all physical manifestation.

In the ancient scriptures, it does not actually specify whether Krishna used the bathroom or not. No scripture talks about His bodily functions. We have all of these preconceived notions regarding how a spiritual person is supposed to be. So when we choose the spiritual life, we automatically try to imitate a spiritual person. We try to match that stereotype. Imitating a spiritual person, won’t make us spiritual. Imitating a spiritual person perfectly will only just provide a boost for our ego. Instead of trying to achieve a spiritual person’s status, we should be working to attain their state of consciousness.

Life is a whole. Only when we start living intensely do we start enjoying the whole. Simply living in the moment with no concern about the past or the future is what I consider as living intensely. It is the present moment that determines our future, not our imagination of the future or our memories of the past. In the present, there is no problem with working towards our imagination; however, there is no requirement to remember that imagination again and again in the present.

We can use our past experiences in the present, however it is not necessary to be in fear as a result of our past experiences. When we set a goal, forget the goal and simply start working. We don’t need to worry about the goal or constantly keep reminding ourselves of it.

There are two types of planning. Chronological planning is the first type. Chronological planning is on a timescale. We decide, I will get up at 7 am in the morning, finish getting ready for work by 8 am, arrive at the office at 9 am and I need to complete these specific tasks by 5 pm. This type of planning is okay because it is practical and allows us to organize our lives efficiently and encourages the best results. Also, it is okay because it doesn't take too much energy.

On the other hand, psychological planning is the worry that will hurt us and drain a lot of our energy. This is a type of planning that goes on in our head with no relevance to time. It is continuous and serious planning that plays over and over in our mind. In contrast, when we live in the moment we actually live the whole. Life is neither the past nor the future, it is the now. That is why we are now here or nowhere.

For most of us, we are running constantly through this life. When we reach the end of our lives, we suddenly start asking ourselves, 'why have we been running all this time?' We are just contestants in a race, a big rat race.

Even if you win the race, you are still a rat. I don't think anyone wants to be a rat just for the sake of winning.

Around the age of 40 – 45 we enter into a new phase of our life which I call 'depression of success.' It means that during our entire life, we have worked hard and struggled to get what we wanted and, suddenly, after acquiring it all we don't know what to do with it. Many people come to me and tell me they have everything a man could ask for, yet somehow they do not feel at all happy. They do not feel at home. When you reach this phase, you all of a sudden start making major decisions in your life. This is

the time when you try to change everything including your car, house, and wife or husband.

Many professional people, including doctors, come to me and tell me, ‘Master, I don’t believe in my profession, therefore how can I practice it? I feel I am not in the right place. I feel totally misplaced.’ Their Being is completely filled with agony and misery. We have to understand, it is not important what we are doing. The state of our Being is what matters. Only changing our inner space will allow us to feel peace and contentment with whatever situation is present in our lives.

Most of us will continuously try to change what we are doing or our present situation, be it our job, our house, our wife or husband. We firmly believe that these external things or situations are the cause for our misery. However, it doesn’t matter how many careers we try, how many different homes we live in or how many different relationships we enter into. If we are not in tune with ourselves, we will continuously feel that restlessness, that frustration and agony within.

Either we start changing things or we become addicted to something to escape from ourselves. Addictions are not just limited to alcohol and drugs but people can also become television addicts. Television is a familiar method of escaping oneself. We refuse to sit with ourselves so we make every effort to surround ourselves with entertainment. If we really become aware of ourselves while watching television, we will notice how deeply restless we are. That is why within just 15 minutes we can flick through the whole channel availability. We can’t even sit with one channel for more than 15 minutes.

The other day, an advertisement producer came to meet me. He divulged results of a survey showing that people can only watch an advertisement for the maximum of 60 seconds. Any longer than that, you have lost the viewer. I was shocked to hear this. People cannot trust anybody for more than 60 seconds because within 60 seconds their decision changes.

If some person helps you escape from yourself by entertaining you, you call them a good entertainer. If some program helps you escape from yourself, you call it a good entertainment program. How long will we continue going out of our way to escape from ourselves? The longer we postpone becoming comfortable with ourselves, the more emptiness we will feel from within.

When we are totally at ease with ourselves, when we radiate bliss, only then will we understand the purpose of our existence in this universe. We will understand the purpose for all of our actions and we won’t be left in the dilemma of wondering why we have done the things we have done our whole life.

We are convinced that bliss is dependant on our outer life. That is the reason why we try to make our outer life perfect. However, we are missing one important thing. Bliss is not based on quantity, it is based on quality. Our ability to sit with ourselves is determined by our inner quality. Our inner quality determines our level of bliss and not the outer quantity. I am not against quality. You can enjoy all of the best things in life, all of the worldly comforts.

Tantra (an ancient Indian text) says beautifully,

‘You don’t need to sell your inner space in order to have your outer space.’

There is no need to disturb or damage your inner space in order to have the outer. We sell our sleep to earn enough money to purchase an expensive bed. We sell our eyes to watch late night movies. We sell our stomachs to enjoy and relish tasty food. This is where we go wrong.

We might visit the beach one day and automatically feel a sudden peace or calmness in our mind. We think, ‘Oh this beach gives me such a feeling of peace and calmness’, so you endeavor to visit the same beach every day. Then what do we start experiencing? Instead of experiencing the peace and calmness, we sit there and start our regular worrying. This is why I tell people, it is not the outer space that decides, it is the inner space that decides. That is why a person who can’t create an inner space of bliss can never have a vacation.

Understand this one example: If we are sitting in our office worrying, it is work. If we are sitting in our home worrying, it is homework. If we are sitting on the beach and worrying, it is a vacation.

When we constantly associate bliss or peace with the outer space or scenery or the outer situations and outer things, we start to believe that this is the only way to experience joy. However, we will find that we cannot experience the same calmness, same joy, same peace and same ananda by putting ourselves in that space outside of ourselves again and again.

It is possible to create enough energy, richness and quality in our inner space and at the same time also enjoy the outer space. There is a technique to achieve this. The technique to attain this inner quality and space is meditation. If you can spend at least 20 to 30 minutes during the day with yourself to enrich your inner space and to maintain the quality of your inner space, then you can't help but radiate bliss. It is so fulfilling that you will also excel in all facets of your life whether it is professional life, family life or social life.

So what stands between us and experiencing the oneness of yoga and permanent bliss that is not influenced by the outer world?

Our mind is what is standing between ourselves and Ourselves. The mind is the major influence that is postponing Nithyananda - Eternal Bliss. The mind is responsible for destroying the quality and richness of our inner space.